Jim Gunderson

Board Chairman

Ajay Chowdhury

CEO, Seatwave

Vinita Sud Belani

Artistic Director

Jim Gunderson is a co­producer of plays, including Enron on Broadway and the recent revival of Back to Bacharach and David in Los Angeles. While studying law, Jim participated in the Javanese gamelan program at the UC Berkeley Department of Music and studied West African polyrhythmic drumming at the Mission Cultural Center. He then co­founded the Invertebrates, one of the more eccentric and enduring music and visual performance art ensembles to emerge from the San Francisco punk rock scene, and has more recently promoted rock concerts in San Diego.

Jim’s day job is corporate governance consulting, focused on multinational for­profit and non­profit organizations. He Chairs the National Association of Corporate Directors New York Chapter, and is governance advisor to several US, Middle East and Australian based multinational businesses with operations throughout the world. He lectures on governance in executive and director education programs in the US, Europe, China and the Middle East.

Jim studied law and philosophy at the University of California, worked at law firms in the US and the Netherlands, and served as Secretary and General Counsel of Schlumberger Limited in New York and Paris, and of Vetco International in London. He co­founded several education­supporting non­profit organizations, including Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development (SEED), where he served as Vice Chairman, and he Chairs the California Music Project.

Ajay Chowdhury is artistic director of Rented Space Theatre Company in London. He studied Theatre Directing at the Central School of Speech and Drama and Film Directing at the Metropolitan Film School at Ealing Studios. Ajay serves on the board of the Arts Council (London). He has directed Cymbeline : Shakespeare, When We Dead Awaken : Ibsen, Engaging Mr Patel : Madhu Rye, Halfway House : Mohan Rakesh, The Lover : Pinter , Smooch Music : David Cale, Gallows Humour: Jack Richardson, The Private Ear: Peter Shaffer, ...And Indrajit: Badal Sircar, Equus: Peter Shaffer, The Dock Brief: John Mortimer, Cabin 12: John Bishop, Girls Just Want to Have Fun : Short film, selected for Brighton short film festival, A Simple Twist of Fate: Short film.

In real life he is CEO of ComQi, a leading global multi­channel messaging technology company. Prior to this, Ajay co­founded Acacia Capital Partners and IDG Ventures Europe, a $100m European venture capital arm of IDG, the world’s leading IT media publisher. Prior to starting IDGVE, Ajay was European President and CEO of NBC Internet. Prior to joining NBCi he was Chief Executive of LineOne – a joint venture between United News and Media and British Telecom – which he helped grow into one of the UK’s largest portals and Internet Service Providers and which was subsequently sold to Tiscali.

He joined United News and Media in 1991 and was founder and Managing Director of United Interactive – its new media division. Before joining United, he was a manager at Bain & Company, the international strategy consultants. Ajay has an MBA from Wharton and a Bachelor of Commerce from Bombay University. He has also served on the boards Shazam (where he was Chairman and interim CEO), the British Screen Advisory Council, Lionhead Studios (sold to Microsoft in April 2006, MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Commission), Index on Censorship and Virtual Internet PLC (sold to Register.com in February 2002). In 2005, Ajay was selected by the Institute of Asian Professionals to be part of the Asian Power 100 – the 100 most influential and powerful Asians in the UK.

Her directorial debut with Whose Life is Anyway, by Brian Clarke. She has directed six other plays including Barefoot in the Park, Witness for the prosecution and Surya ki antim kiran se pehli kiran tak. Vinita studied acting under Kay Kostopolous at Stanford as well as playwriting and creative writing. She is the author of a series of books of folk tales from across the world for children.Vinita Belani transitioned to doing theatre full time from her last corporate job as VP Business Development at SOGETI, Groupe Cap Gemini.

Prior to this she was Founder and CEO of SWApplications, Director of Business Development and Sales at FirstRain, Founder of Paguro.com and Software Project Manager at Grindlays ANZ. Vinita holds a Masters in Computer Science from BITS Pilani, India, an MBA from HEC Paris France, and a Masters in French language and literature from the Sorbonne, Paris France. Vinita has absorbed diverse cultural influences from having lived in many countries across South East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and America.

She speaks French, German and Spanish as well as Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi. A strong believer in giving back to the community. Her many volunteer roles include being seven times coach and judge for Destination Imagination, Editor of SSAfara – an expatriation magazine, founding Board member of SEED – a global Science and Technology initiative, IT advisor at WICE – a Women’s continuing education institute in Paris, English teacher at an orphanage in Jakarta, Indonesia and substitute Math and French teacher in diverse countries, amongst others.